A Short Story to Recreate a Materialistic Reality:"Outage," by John Updike

“Outage,” a short story by John Updike, reflects the monotonous existence people of the XXIst century are accustomed to have, an existence where electricity, technology, and sex are the only elements that constitute their reality. Brad Morris, the main character, finds himself stuck in the middle of a power outage that paralyzed the entire activity in his home and near-by town. “Without electricity, there was nothing to do.” (p.1). Technology plays a mayor role in modern life. Its value and esteem has become so high, in fact, that humans today have developed a dependency on machines and other electrical devices in order to continue with their daily, monotonous tasks. “He felt impotent, amused by his impotence, in this emergency.” (p. 2). Man is useless without technology. So useless, in fact, that a brief power outage comes to be called an “emergency.” Daily life has become computerized, uncontrollable by human instinct and instead managed entirely by the new appliances that arise. The magnitude of our dependability of machines has risen exponentially over the past few years, converting humanity into a bunch of useless individuals unable to perform any sort of task without external help.

Another common element that persisted throughout the last pages of the story was sex. Brad and Lynne’s vulnerability to succumb to their urges is presented as something natural, even though they are both cheating on their spouses. Like Cúnegonde in Candide, these two characters view sex with different people as something “human” and “harmless.” (p. 4). What’s more alarming still is the increasing rate at which sex as an act of love and devotion to another person is being undermined and simply used as a means to satisfy human desires. “He did not want to feel that this neighbor was much younger than he, but an age difference was declared in how calmly and quickly she had shed her clothes, as if it were no big deal.” (p. 7).

The XXIst century has been flooded with high indexes of production and human activity. Amid the struggles to make life easier to handle in a world where stress, economic pursuits, and sexual urges put every individual at the service of a materialistic god, our existence as what used to be a real human being still remains shallow and irrelevant. When compared to the plot of Candide, the reader finds that modern society is yet much more conformist than that of the XVIIIth century. After all, electricity is all it takes to please an individual. There is no search for a better reality or any hope of human goodness, as these values and aspirations prove to be irrelevant today. Based on the previous inferences, I can conclude that the title of the work, “Outage,” is not referred only to a power outage, but to an outage of human individuality as well. Like the irrelevancy of the story’s plot, our existence has become completely insignificant. Our lives as men, controlled by emotions and our ability to think rationally, have shut down.

The element that questioned me the most was not the materialism of modern lifestyle, but rather its abandonment when the electricity returned and Brad and Lynne interrupted sex. “Brad turned his eyes from her nakedness, his wispy blonde’s. ‘It’s saying,’ he told her, ‘ ‘This is how it is. This is reality.’ ’” (p. 7). Why would a wake up call back to reality interrupt the impulsiveness of the characters’ behavior? If the return of electricity symbolizes a return to monotonous life, why do Brad and Lynne decide to abandon sex, an activity presented as normal and typical in the short story? I believe that by using this apparent paradox, Updike manages to communicate and strengthen the message of the monotony of modern life. It is impossible to experience any sort of emotion, such as the conventional excitement of sexual intercourse, simply because this would disrupt the normal, quotidian pattern of events we are accustomed to experience daily. Sex is presented as a common way to relieve the pressures of everyday life, dominated entirely by technology and human inability to carry out a meaningful, significant existence.